Creating a texture and normal map from a 3D model / scene
I think you are looking for Render Baking:

Using render baking you can make normal maps, color maps, shadow maps, AO textures, etc.

Here is an example, the top wall is a plane with baked normals and render shading from the bottom wall:



Note that baking is only available in BI currently, but support for it in Cycles is already in a testing state (you can use it, but it is still experimental) and is targeted to be in 2.71.